Top 5 Reasons I Enjoy Being a Working Mother

We often hear about the caveats to being a working mom. Well, I guess I should say a mom who holds a public job, as there is no such thing as a non-working mom. However, rarely do we hear the good side of this phenomenon. I know, many of you out there are groaning, "Good Side? What good side?" But, believe me when I say there definitely is a good side to working outside the home. So, I am going to tell you the top five good points to being a working mother.

The first good thing about being a working mother is you always have an excuse for a dirty house. If you do not feel like dusting when you get home, it is truly no big deal. You can always blame your messy house on your job. This technique works with spouses, in-laws and friends equally well. They can't argue with you when you tell them, "I have just been wiped out from work lately. I really apologize for the way the house looks!" After all, it is probably true. One pointer on this one though, if your child is under five they will tell on you when you say how busy you have been! (Think, "Mommy watched TV all day yesterday!")

The second good thing about being a working mom is adult company. Now, I grant you if you are a stay at home mom, you will still be with adults occasionally. However, one of the great benefits of working outside the home is that you get to have adult conversations on a regular basis. You probably will not even have to break up your sentences with don't, stop, quit, and please! Better yet, you won't have to talk over the cartoons, or listen to Barney from morning to night. You may even make it through an entire day without humming a song off of some cartoon, or getting it irreplaceably trapped in your head.

The third great thing about being a working mom is it reminds you to take care of yourself. I have been both a stay at home mom, and a working mom at different times in my life. When I was home with my child all day, the little things like putting on makeup or brushing my hair sometimes completely escaped my plans for the day. I mean really, what was the point when no one but my infant would see me anyways? So, as a working mom you are forced out into the public regularly. The likelihood that you will forget to put on your makeup or brush your hair is really diminished when you know you could bump into the neighborhood gossip at any given time.

Another great thing about being a working mom is that you can get away with fast food for dinner, without feeling terribly guilty. When I stayed at home all day, I felt like I had to provide my family with a fresh made from scratch meal every night. While this is still a very enjoyable experience occasionally, I don't feel guilty now if I take a night off away from the stove. I can justify it not only to myself, but also to everyone else with the patent excuse of being overly tired from work or simply not having time to cook.

Finally, the very best thing about working outside the home is that my clothes remain puke, snot and food free most days! Now, I cannot say that everyone had the same problems that I did as a stay at home mom, but for some reason everything that came off of my child applied itself directly to my clothing. If he spit up, it inevitably leaked through the burp pad onto my shoulder. If he sneezed and I was in arms reach, it ended up being wiped on me. And last but not least, is there really a better place to wipe cheetos covered fingers than mommy's shirt? I haven't had any of the above-mentioned things wiped on me by a coworker, and if I ever do, I promise the fit I will throw will not be pretty.

Every mother has to at some time make a choice regarding working at home or in a public job, and we inevitably all hear how bad it is for our children if we choose to work outside our home. I, for one, enjoy working every day. I think sometimes we as women take things too seriously, and need to look at the lighter side of working outside the home in a Barney, booger, puke free environment, where we can laugh, cuss and tell dirty jokes without worrying about the children hearing, and then go home at the end of the day to cook and clean or not and enjoy our families.